


Unfinished Business

by SeveralWords



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: 16x16, F/M, Izzex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-26 11:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30105330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeveralWords/pseuds/SeveralWords
Summary: The following chapters narrate the events that I think, or hope, took place between Alex reaching out to Izzie and the last time we hear from him. How they got back together and what happened in Kansas that prompted Alex to leave everything behind.I am trying to keep the story as canon as possible, but this is obviously my opinion on what happened between them, and the story will carry on after 16x16.In herPlease don't disrespect the work just because you don't like Izzex, I have tried to be as respectful as possible to Jo, so please do the same.
Relationships: Alex Karev/Izzie Stevens
Comments: 14
Kudos: 18





	1. There is a light in the distance waiting for me.

She cleans her hands on the tea towel hanging from her shoulder, baby blue with small red strawberries. She picks up the ringing phone without looking at it. She brings it to her ear and holds it with her shoulder whilst she walks towards the oven, oven mitts matching the tea towel in her hand. “Hello?” She says cheerfully.

She opens the door to the oven. Steam floats out and hits her in the face, she breaths in the sweet smell, perfectly cooked, she smiles excited. No one replies on the other side of the line. “Hello?” She repeats. Still Izzie Stevens is met only with more silence. “Hello, is anyone there?” She asks again, placing the tray of just-baked muffins on the kitchen counter. “Iz?” A voice she recognises finally answers, it sends a chill through her spine as if someone had opened a window and the cold air had sneaked in through her top, blowing softly from the small of her back to the top of her neck. She picks the phone with her right hand, as her breathing races. “Alex?” She manages to mutter to the cold device in her hand. “Hey.”

The room spins around her, and she has to rest her free hand on the kitchen counter to compose herself. “Is everything okay?” A sudden dread takes over her. “Yeah… I mean… It’s Meredith. She’s okay… she’s fine, she’s just in trouble, she has done something stupid trying to save a patient, a little girl, and she might lose her license. She is doing some community service picking up trash off the street.” He blurts out before he can stop to catch air and chicken out. Izzie breaks up laughing, that laugh of hers, he has never been able to forget it, yet he realises now how much the memory of hers has paled in his mind over all these years. “Of course she’d be trash-picking to save the world.” He joins her, a deep, heart-felt laugh erupts from his chest. “Really, it is something you would have done. You should see her.” She laughs louder. He imagines her picking trash on the side of the road, chin up, proud of herself. “Yeah, doing stupid shit and risk my license definitely sounds like something I would do.” She is laughing so hard her stomach hurts.

She’s been speaking to her ex-husband for all five minutes and it feels like no time has passed at all. She’s already in tears, happy tears. Has it really been ten years? “She’s been suspended and there’s this trial… I’m just… I’m just trying to get testimonials of people that worked with her.” He continues when he finally gains control of himself and manages to stop the laughter. He struggles to get out the words he has rehearsed in his head so many times. The truth seems to be probing his brain, kicking and screaming, eager to be finally told. He tells her the excuse he has prepared beforehand instead. “I was, just… I thought maybe you could, you know, maybe you could write something nice about her, help her case.” She smiles, warmed by the thought of him thinking about her even if only so she could help out Meredith. She imagines them both together, in dark blue scrubs smiling to each other, sharing some inside joke. She is glad they’re still there for each other. “Of course, of course I could. Yeah, sure. When do you need it for-”

  
“Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, marinated monkey meat. Dirty little birdie feet!” A litte girl’s voice hums in the back, giggling. Izzie’s heart jump up on her chest, startled, mortified. Alex laughs again. “Nice song.” He recognises the lyrics from first grade. “So… you have kids?” He asks, still amused at the little girl’s voice. He pictures a cute mini version of Izzie, blond and with the most beautiful brown eyes. She takes a deep breath, her heart threatening to jump off her chest onto her mouth, spilling all over the chocolate muffins. She wants to scream, cry out loud. She’s imagined this conversation so many times before, but it has never gone this way. She ponders all the different scenarios in her head, what she could say and how he would react, but she finds herself unable to materialise any words. How can she rock his life like this. She finds herself lost in a sea of silence, only broken by the faint sound of his breathing on the other side of the phone line, miles away. “Yes, two. Twins.” She tries hard to hide the trembling of her vocal cords, she is unsure she’s succeed.  
He nods, of course she does. He had always known that, then why does he feel this way? What is it he is feeling? Is is disappointment? Jealousy? “That’s good. I am happy for you.” He says finally, pushing the tenacious thoughts to the side, tucked away, where they have been for a decade. “Do you?” She asks, breaking the awkward silence it has formed between the two phone lines. “Nah. No kids.” She nods, relieved? But you’re married she wants to say. She’s known he remarried for a while. She’s always thought he would have had kids by now. She should ask, it’ll be the natural thing to follow up with, still, somehow she can’t bring herself to, can’t bear hearing him confirm it, speak about her, the woman he loves.

“Mummy, can we have the muffins yet?” The same girl asks.  
“Is this a bad a time?” Alex asks, Izzie shakes her head. “Oh, no.” She waves her daughter away from the hot muffins, faint, slow steam still coming off them, and brings her right index finger to her lips. “It’s fine, seriously. How can I forward it to you-” “Mum! Can we eat them already?” A boy asks impatient, interrupting her again. Alex suddenly feels out of place, like an invader .  
“I should go, Izzie, this is clearly not a good time. I just-“ ”No, Alex, hold on.” She pulls the phone down and covers the microphone with her hands.  
“Okay you two, go wash your hands first. Properly.” Both of them rush up the stairs in between giggles.

“Sorry about that.” She apologies, she doesn’t want to end the conversation, she has waited so long to hear his voice again. But she knows she doesn’t have long before the twins come back downstairs demanding their baked goods. “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to call you like this… I was… I don’t know… I don’t think I was expecting you to answer if I’m honest.” He says genuinely, relieved she has. She smiles gently, thinks of his face on the other side of the line, she imagines some fine lines in his handsome face, salt and pepper hair. She sighs emotionally. She knows this is the perfect opportunity to talk to him, to tell him. But she does not know what to say. She needs to tell him though, she can’t just not.

  
“How are you, anyway?” He breaks the silence this time. She knows what he means. Last time he saw her she was recovering from a very aggressive form of cancer. “I’m good, Alex. I have been clean ever since.” Her words dig deeper than he expects, he feels tears building up in his eyes. He pictures her limp in his arms, an image that still haunts his dreams. She is a fricking miracle. And he can’t be prouder. “I’m so glad, Iz.” She shivers at the sound of her name in his lips. Alex wipes a tear from his cheek.

  
She hears her own children stomping on the wooden stairs, on the way down to the kitchen. She does not have the time, they can’t have this conversation right now. “Alex, can I call you a different time? I’ll sort out Meredith’s letter and I can maybe call you tomorrow?” He was sensing the end to their conversation was coming up, but it doesn’t pain him any less when she initiates the goodbyes. “Yeah, yeah of course. You have my number now.” Like that has been the reason she has not made contact for over a decade, the fact that she did not know his number. He feels stupid. “Good, thanks. I’ll speak to you tomorrow then.” He doesn’t want to hung up, he doesn’t want to stop listening to her voice. “Okay.” He eventually says against his will. He pulls the phone away from his ear before he hears his name again.  
“Alex!” She shouts back at him. “Yeah?” He brings his phone back to his ear swiftly, pushing it hard, as if that will bring him closer to her. She opens her mouth ready to speak up, but the words seem to get lost on the way, as if blown away by a draft or tucked away for so long, in the dark, they can’t find their way out anymore, even with the cage door wide open. “It’s so good to hear your voice.” She says instead, stupidly. Tears are building up in her eyes, she notices. She closes them tightly, her chest so tight it hurts. “Yeah, yours too.” He is smiling wide because it truly is, her voice has lighted him up from within. He puts the phone down. The line cracks right after. And his voice fades into the dark, black empty abyss where it has been for all these years.

  
Eli runs into the kitchen and hugs her legs. “Who was that?” His bright brown eyes looking up at her. Your dad, she wants to tell them. She has been waiting for this moment for five years, and now that she’s here she can’t bring herself to accept it. “Just an old friend.” She says instead. Alexis is climbing up the kitchen stool and she dips her tiny finger in the melted chocolate on top of one of the muffins. Eli joins her, grinning so wide you can see his small perfect teeth, his lips crooked to the side just like his dad’s. She sees Alex’s face smiling in front of her so vividly she wants to cry.


	2. The sand in the hourglass is running low.

She locks the door to her office behind her. She’s just dropped the kids at school and she has asked work for a couple of hours of personal time to attend an appointment that does not exist. Now she is pacing the room nervously, clutching her phone with both hands against her chest. She feels light headed, her heart pumping so fast her brain is over oxygenated. She takes a deep breath, and then another one. She closes her eyes in preparation, and before she can change her mind she picks up the phone and dials his number.  
She holds her breath with the first ring, and the rest, she gives herself until the sixth one is up before putting it down.

He feels his phone buzzing in his trouser’s pocket, he instantly fetches it out and checks the caller. He fights the smile forming in his face, but he can’t help his stomach flipping on itself. He rushes through the hospital corridors to his office, he wants to be alone when he speaks to her.  
She knows the timing isn’t great, he’ll most likely be busy at this time in the morning, but she cannot bear spending all day waiting to speak to him, thinking, and wondering what to say and how to say it. She hardly slept last night rehearsing every possible scenario. The fifth beep lasts at least three times longer than the rest, she feels like she has not breathed for minutes.  
She is ready to hang up when the ring tone is interrupted by a swift silence.

He manages to dodge everyone he has encountered so far, he slides his finger to the right on his phone screen to answer the call and brings it hastily to his ear. His hand is on the door handle. “Hey.” He says briefly, almost out of breath. His answer, short, is not reassuring. She knew it wasn’t a good time, and is now regretting her choices. “Hey… I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” “Oh no!” He replies slightly too loud. He swears to himself. He needs to calm down. “Hold on.” He has one foot inside of his office when one of the nurses, he has forgotten his name, again, catches up with him with some sort of forms in his hands. “Chief!” He pushes the papers in his face. “These needed to be signed last week!” He rolls his eyes at him and grabs the papers reluctantly. “Sure, I’ll sort them out today.” He sneaks into his office before the nurse can say another word and locks the door behind him.  
“Sorry about that.” He continues, his voice warmer. She breaths out relieved. “Chief, uh?” Her soft voice whispers in his ear. He allows himself to smile now, radiant, sheltered from the outside world, a world that does not have Izzie Stevens in it. “Yeah, how crazy is that?” He laughs it off. “Not at all that crazy to be honest. I always knew you’d be a rock star, Alex.” He smirks like a school boy, blushing. “Are you seriously chief of surgery at Seattle Grace?” She is impressed. “Grey Sloan Memorial.” He corrects her. She wants to kick herself. “Of course. I’m sorry, I keep forgetting.” “It’s fine, I sometimes forget myself. And no, I’m not. Not anymore, I was last year though.” He says proudly. “Oh my God, Alex, that is amazing! What happened to Webber? Did he finally retire?” “No, he stepped down, Hunt took over for a while, Bailey then got the role, but she had a heart attack and had to take some time off and somehow she put me in charge, don’t ask me why.” He chuckles lightly. “Oh God, is Bailey okay?” Izzie grasps her phone tightly in her hand. “Oh yeah, she’s fine. She recovered fine, came back and fired my ass.” “What?” Izzie’s jaw falls open, struggling to keep up, and laughs confused. “I somehow got involved in Meredith’s insurance fraud.” “Why am I not surprised? Well, I’m glad someone's kept up with the malpractice in my absence.” She jokes heartily, Alex joins her in laughs, his face sore from all the smiling. “Yeah, you can imagine Bailey wasn’t too psyched about it. She fired Webber too.” “No!” That she really cannot believe. Webber and Bailey are the only constant in the images she had created in her mind of the hospital that saw her grow up. She can’t think of one without thinking of the other. “Yes, and now he works for me at the fantastic Pacific Northwest General Hospital.” “No kidding. I hope you’re kicking his ass.” He laughs. “You bet I am.” She smiles widely. A pang of pain, maybe guilt, tugs at the corner of her lips and turns her smiles downwards. She’s reminded of how much of his life she has missed out. How much Seattle has changed since she drove away. She remembers Meredith’s words, the ones that once prompted her to go back and fight for him with everything she had left in her. _He is moving on._ He has been moving on for so long he was now in a complete different world. Even Seattle has moved on without her. She feels herself tearing up, a sad, sour knot lodges in her throat. “So what did she do?” She pushes the sorrow taking over herself away and forces a smile, only happy thoughts are allowed today. “Mer?” Oh it’s a long story he thinks. But he has the time, he has nothing but time for her. A long story is what she wants, she could hear his voice all day long. Izzie listens attentively, a cup of lukewarm coffee gets cold in her hand, whilst he describes how Meredith Grey used her daughter’s insurance to cover the surgery needed to save a little undocumented girl’s life. The tenderness in his voice when he speaks about Mer overwhelms her, she misses them both so much. And of course he'd risked everything for her, his best "man", his family. She stays in silent while he praises her lengthily, fighting the emotional tears rushing to her eyes.

“What about you? Are you still a surgeon?” She doesn't realise Alex has stopped talking for a while. She recomposes herself, swallowing loudly, wiping the tears off her face. “Yes, you are talking to the attending surgical oncologist at Baldwin Community Hospital. You know, not as fancy as chief of surgery but not too shabby if I don't say so myself. I am kicking ass too, Alex. Some nasty cancer ass.” “That is amazing, Iz, really.” He nods, beaming, he’s so incredibly proud. Of course she is saving lives, a walking miracle herself. It had never occurred to him she’d choose to specialise in oncology , but it makes total sense. Now that he knows he can’t picture her doing anything but being the most brilliant surgical oncologist. The way she has always cared for her patients, he has never seen anything like that. “It is, isn’t it? I am an amazing surgeon really.” She chuckles, jokingly, rolls her eyes playfully lighting up the mood, feigning she’s not swoon by his sweet, dazzled words. “You always have been.” He says sincerely. She bits the corner of her lip trying to keep a broad smile under control.   
They both sit at their desks, hands on their phones, smiling, awestruck by all the dormant emotions shaken wide awake from a deep, heavy sleep, taking over their bodies. They fall silent, she looks at the watch on her wrist. They’ve been talking for almost an hour. She still needs to get ready for work. But she can’t bring herself to accept the end of the conversation might be approaching. She needs to tell him, she cannot wait another day. 

She holds the breath in her half open mouth. She can’t tell him, can she? The seconds tick faster, synchronising with the beating of her heart, in silence, she feels the blood pulsating against her temples. She needs to say something. But she can't tell him, not really. “When do you need Mer’s letter for?” She blurts out nervously, trying to derail the conversation from its impending fate. “The trial is next week. So before then if possible.” He senses they're running out of topics to talk about. “Of course, yes that will be fine. I will get to it tonight.” “Good, thank you.” So that’s all he guesses, that’s what he has called her for, there’s not much more left to say. 

And yet he feels like he could talk to her forever. There is so much time of their lives they need to catch up with. He wants to know every single detail of her life that he’s missed out. Every single detail he has imagined for her. He wants to know if she is as happy as he wants her to be. And there's still something eating away at him. He wants to know, he doesn’t really, but somehow he already does, there’s always a nice guy in the life he has imagined for her, a man that deserves her. He's never put a face on him, he's like a shadow, a faceless presence hovering in the corner making Izzie smile. “Did you… are you… did you get married again?” Izzie's heart skips a beat, their conversation is getting into dangerous territory. “Me?” She smilies anxiously, unable to breathe. "No." She pauses, briefly, her words brittle, almost breaking into pieces as she speaks them out. "I never did." "Oh." Alex is stunned, somehow pleased, but certainly surprised. "I just thought..." She knows what he thought and she knows what he is thinking. "Yeah, well, you know. Sometimes things just don't go to plan." She acts quickly, before he can come up to his own conclusions. A thick tear slides down her cheek, slowly, she thinks of herself walking up the aisle, to him, his hopeful face following her every step. That certainly didn't end up like she pictured. She opens her mouth and tries to breath in quietly, she purses her lips and looks up to the ceiling holding her tears from welling over, fighting against gravity. He nods, softly, he can sense the pain in her voice, and feels the anger building up in him. It has never occurred to him she might not be happy. He thinks of the last time he saw her, he has always tried to push that image away, the torment in her face. He has replaced that image of her by her wonderful smiling self. Guilt strikes him like a baseball bat to his stomach. 

“Alex?” She interrupts his trail of thought. “Yes?” She closes her eyes intensively, her tears finally overflowing, soaking her face, her heart beating so hard she’s afraid she might vomit it out. “Alex, if I had something to tell you, something… something so huge, so ridiculously huge that could potentially turn your life upside down… I mean it wouldn’t have to, if you didn’t want to but… it could, it could potentially change everything… if I had something so big to tell you, would you… would you want to know?” He’s taken aback, disconcerted he straightens himself on his chair, his mind immediately thinks of his feelings for her, resurfacing from the profound archives of his mind, buried so deep, and for so long he can't believe they feel so real, so alive.  
How quickly and easily they had come rushing back up the second he heard her voice. Could she be feeling the same way? And if she did, would he want to know? “Yes, I would.” 

  
“They’re yours, Alex.” He frowns softly, confused, his eyes wander lost across the room in front of him. "What's mine?" 

"Eli and Alexis. The twins, Alex. They're yours. I used our frozen embryos."


End file.
